ALEISTER CROWLEY - the Abbey of Thélème

THE ABBEY OF THELEMA

The name was borrowed from François Rabelais's satire Gargantua and Pantagruel, where an Abbey of Thélème is described as a sort of "anti-monastery" where the lives of the inhabitants were "spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure."This idealistic utopia was to be the model of Crowley's commune, while also being a type of magical school, giving it the designation "Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum", A College towards the Holy Spirit.The general program was in line with the A∴A∴ course of training, and included daily adorations to the sun, a study of Crowley's writings, regular yogic and ritual practices (which were to be recorded), as well as general domestic labor.The object was for students to devote themselves to the Great Work of discovering and manifesting their True Will.Crowley had planned to transform the small house into a global center of magical devotion and perhaps to gain tuition fees paid by acolytes seeking training in the Magical Arts; these fees would further assist him in his efforts to promulgate Thelema and publish his manuscripts.Two women, Hirsig and Shumway (her magical name was Sister Cypris after Aphrodite), both became pregnant by Crowley at the Abbey. Hirsig had a miscarriage, but Shumway gave birth to a daughter (11/12/20), Astarte Lulu Panthea.From 1931, Astarte was raised in the US by Helene Fraux. Astarte would grow up to have four children of her own, including jazz pianist Eric Muhler. On arrival in Sicily, Hirsig had a two-year old son named Hansi and Shumway had a three-year old son named Howard; they were not Crowley's sons but he nicknamed them Dionysus and Hermes respectively.At some point, Hirsig suspected Shumway of magickal foul play, and Crowley found supporting evidence of it in Shumway's magickal diary (everybody had to keep one while at the abbey for reasons explained in Liber E).Appalled, Crowley banished Shumway from the abbey, however, she soon returned to take care of her children.In 1923, a 23-year-old Oxford undergraduate by the name of Raoul Loveday (or Frederick Charles Loveday) died at the Abbey.His wife, Betty May, variously blamed the death on his participation in one of Crowley's rituals (allegedly incorporating the consumption of the blood of a sacrificed cat) or the more probable diagnosis of acute enteric fever contracted by drinking from a mountain spring.(Crowley had warned the couple against drinking the water, as reported in biographies by Lawrence Sutin, Richard Kaczynski and others.)When May returned to London, she gave an interview to a tabloid paper, 'The Sunday Express', which included her story in its ongoing attacks on Crowley.With these and similar rumors about activities at the Abbey in mind, Benito Mussolini's government demanded that Crowley leave the country in 1923.After Crowley's departure, the Abbey of Thelema was eventually abandoned and local residents whitewashed over Crowley's murals.The villa still stands today, but in poor condition. Filmmaker Kenneth Anger, himself a devotee of Crowley, later uncovered and filmed some of its murals in his film Thelema Abbey (1955) now considered a lost film.Recently other murals were uncovered, and pictures of them were posted on the Internet. "Abbey of Thelema" remains a popular name for various magical societies, Witchcraft covens, and Satanist grottoes.